Emma Nnadozie, Victor Ahiuma-Young, Evelyn Usman and Uduma Kalu
22 November 2008
Female victims of Nigerian Police detention facilities who were raped, and impregnated by men of the force will now have a chance to chat with an investigating team of the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro.
This is because the IGP has ordered his officers investigating the alleged case of female prisoners impregnated while in detentions to go the Kirikiri prisons for one-on-one interviews with the victims.
But Ibrahim Aliyu, the police granted presidential pardon by President Umaru Yar'Adua, has told Saturday Vanguard that he was innocent of the crime he was condemned for.
In an interview held with fortunate ex condemned prisoner week before his pardon, Aliyu asked that prisoners who have spent from 10 to 20 years in the prisons should be pardoned and released as the inmates would have learnt their lessons.
But Okiro, reacting to Saturday Vanguard's exclusive report on how members of the Nigerian police rape female detainees in their custody, said the police has a role to play in terms of detention and prosecution.
"The moment a suspect is charged to court, he or she becomes an accused person. From there, the warders and prisons authority take the accused to the prison to report to the court. At that moment, the accused will be awaiting trial. They are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Police, up to the time they are convicted.
The fact that some people in prison are pregnant and they say that the police is responsible, one begins to wander whether policemen leave their stations and go to the prison to have an affair with these women," Okiro explained.
To arrest the situation, the IGP, visibly angered by the report, vowed to get to the root of the allegation, saying he those found culpable would be punished. Meanwhile, Saturday Vanguard has gathered that the Kirikiri Maximum Prison, the highest security prison in Kirikiri prisons, presently houses about 535 inmates, comprising 100 condemned inmates, 26 lifers (those serving life sentence) and 326 awaiting trial inmates.
Ailments prevalent there are skin diseases and infections, diabetes and malaria. While 30 inmates are undergoing treatment for hypertension, 20 are to be operated for hyena, and about five are suffering from HIV\AIDS.
An official of the prison said the authorities need regular supply of drugs to combat the illnesses. The prison, he went on, has an "AVR centre for the management of the HIV\AIDS cases among other standard centre."
The IGP, earlier in the week, who spoke through the Force Public Relations Officer, Agberebi Akpoebi, in a statement issued in Abuja, said, "the attention of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr. Mike Mbama Okiro, has been drawn to pages 1 and 5 publication of Saturday Vanguard Newspaper of 15th November, 2008 on the caption "Police made us pregnant in detention-female prisoners.
"For the information of the reading public, the police authorities wish to state that the duties of Nigeria police stop as soon as judgment is pronounced or passed on accused persons and as such, policemen are not expected to have direct contact with inmates of whatever sex.
"Aside from that, the police are equally not authorised to have access to prison inmates to the extent of having sexual relationship with them. As a matter of fact, the story as published was not linked to a particular police station or a policeman, his identity, description, character or otherwise".
"In the same vein, the newspapers publication was unsubstantiated as it failed to indicate if there was a formal complaint by the victims or their representatives, let alone time and date of incident.
"Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police has ordered a full-scale investigation to unravel the truth position of the publication, as the present police administration would not condone any act of unprofessional conduct, criminality and violence against women in whatever guise.
"Therefore, any policeman found wanting at the end of the investigation would be made to face the full wrath of the law."
Meanwhile, Mr. Ibrahim Aliyu, the 57-year-old policeman pardoned this week by President Umaru Yar'Adua has called on the federal government to free all prisoners who have spent 10 to 20 years in prison because, as he put it, "Because, I believe the long time they have spent here has served the punishment for the killing or crimes that they committed. Even if the person was killed, even if he is a lifer (Life imprisonment) that he was given, to stay here in prison for 10 years, 20 years and above, it is not a joke.
That is why I am pleading that government should pardon and release us. Even if the person was convicted for killing somebody, the long stay here is a big lesson that no normal person would like to repeat."
Saying that he was innocent of the crime for which he was accused, Aliyu said he was arrested in February 1983 but convicted on December 17, 1996, spent 25 years in prison, 22 as condemned inmate and three in detention.
Aliyu, a policeman, was interviewed by Saturday Vanguard one week before he was released. During the interview, his file was being looked for, none was aware that he would be pardoned, as it had become a routine for his file to be asked for.
Aliyu, whose case suffered over 15 adjournments, even till he was pardoned, said he was innocent of the robbery case for which he was condemned, along with another, one William Amekiyi, who is still in prison.
Hear him: "I am a policeman (Police). I was working at the Ports Authority at Apapa Wharf. We arrested a trailer loaded with rice."
We took the trailer to the Ibafo Police Station, near Kirikiri here. When we got there, the policemen there took our statements and particulars.
We were two. Then the station officer interviewed the owners of the goods and he told him that there were not stolen stolen goods, that he should release the trailer and allow the goods to go.
After he had released the trailer, later on, the owner of the trailer came back to the station and said some group of people went to his warehouse, burgled it and stole those goods after the trailer was released with those goods.
He alleged that we were the ones that did it. He claimed that after the trailer and the goods were released that we later went back and robbed the warehouse and stole everything in the warehouse. Believe me, there was nothing like that. We were arrested and subsequently taken to Ikoyi Prison in 1984.
The case was charged to court. The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) wrote in the paper that it was not robbery, but a case of conspiracy and stealing. Still, the complainant was not satisfied.
He insisted that it was robbery. We went to High Court, there, they turned it into robbery and we were later convicted. That was how we came here and have been staying here up till now."
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